Anyone looking to remove U3 software from Flash Drive?

SlickVic78 · #1 29th Jan 06, 09:46 PM

Hello Guys and Gals,

It's been a crazy long time since I popped my head in to say hello. I thought that I'd post something that some of you may find interesting.

I ended up just picking up a 1 Gig Flash Drive from Best Buy. It was going for $75 bucks with a $20 mail in rebate. I also used a soon to expire gift certificate I got last year. So total will be $30 dollars once the rebate comes back. Not bad, eh?

Anyways, so the one I picked up was the BestBuy GeekSquad 1 Gig USB2.0 Flash Drive. The only thing that sucked about it was that it came with U3 software. It kinda sucks since all I want it for is to back up files. I don't need to run programs straight from the drive itself (which is what U3 is all about). Anyway, it installs a virtual drive on the system every time you insert the Flash into you computer and it runs a U3 program manager software - which annoyed me.

So I tried removing all files from the drive. Sure, it is gone now, but when you unplugged and put the Flash Drive back into the computer, it rebuilds the files back onto your PC (and back onto the Flash Drive)... Apparently all this info is built into memory of the drive.

Upon doing some "Googling" I found out that there was an internal program (I suppose not meant to be released to the public) that re-flashed the drive to remove the U3 software from memory. So I got my hands on that program, ran it and presto - U3 software completely removed! The only thing left that I needed to do was reformat the Flash Drive to FAT32 (since it becomes just FAT when you remove the U3 software).

Now I have the full 1 Gig of space on the Flash Drive to play with. Very nice and handy little toy. And boy does the USB 2.0 make transferring stuff to the drive quick!

Anyways, I am going to post the link to the software (U3_Uninstaller) - which is definitely not a warez application, but if a Mod or Admin thinks otherwise, please remove it. I am just trying to help the community if they are looking to rid themselves of the U3 software they are forced/stuck with when buying the this drive or I suppose any drive that contains U3... No credit goes to me. It goes out to the person who provided the file from the U3 Community forum (Sneedyreedy):

hxxp://s6.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2XO0FWZ4VNOZ03322OQ9RZXXMQ

I hope everyone is doing well. I usually pop in from time to time to see what everyone is up to. Just haven't posted in a while. Looking forward to catching up with some friends I have met along the way since I've joined way back when.

Best,
-SlickVic78

war59312 · #2 4th Feb 06, 01:09 PM

THanks buddy, will add to collection. Luckly no such software on mine.

SlickVic78 · #3 6th Feb 06, 02:02 PM

Hey war59312,

Good to hear from you. This is definitely a nifty prog to hold on to just in case you do get a pen drive that has the U3 software on it.

Without this program, you cannot remove the U3 stuff. It keeps coming back even if you delete it because there are 2 partitions on the drive. I don't need to install and use programs from the drive (which I guess can be useful for some people), so this was a big deal to me.

They could have at least provided the program freely without having to search and dig the program up. This would have been the right thing to do, I think...

-SlickVic78

Jarod888 · #4 9th Feb 06, 07:52 AM

Here is a new link, from rapid share because the yousend one is expired.
http://rapidshare.de/files/12773731/...aller.exe.html

SlickVic78 · #5 10th Feb 06, 02:17 PM

Good looking out Jarod888. It was a matter of time that the link I provided would expire.

-SlickVic78